Lakewood's Tent City "is over"

Tent City resident Alex Libman walks through the community on May 30 with a protest sign. Lakewood intends to close the encampment.
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LAKEWOOD – With the homeless people gone from Tent City, township employees are moving ahead with a wholesale clearing of the camp, municipal officials said Monday.

Once the tents and other items at the site are gone, Lakewood is considering planting trees to replace ones chopped by homeless people for firewood or to enlarge the camp, said Deputy Mayor Albert Akerman, who does not anticipate a resurgence of Tent City at the township-owned site.

"I think the whole thing was a movement," Akerman said. "The movement is over."

The last homeless man to leave Tent City was Alex Libman, 32, who declined his court-ordered right to one year in an apartment, paid by township taxpayers.

Police arrested Libman on Thursday when he refused to leave the camp as it was shuttered, they said.

"Libman told us all along he wanted to go out with a bang," Police Chief Robert Lawson said. "When the final order came from the judge to evict him from Tent City, he laid down, so we carried him out."

Libman was arrested again Saturday, when he tried to camp out overnight in the town square at Clifton Avenue and Third Street to protest Tent City's closing.

Libman had previously said he did not want government assistance of any kind.

As part of the court order for Tent City's closure, Lakewood agreed to house 125 homeless people at the camp counted in a May 2013 census. The housing agreement is for as long as one year.

Lakewood has set aside nearly $400,000 in municipal and federal tax dollars for Tent City's closure. Officials expect the final tally will top $600,000.

As part of the agreement, Steve Brigham, who organized the camp, was allowed to remain at the site for one week past its official closure, Akerman said.

Brigham, who can remain at the site until Thursday, said he is passing his last days at Tent City gathering belongings such as generators and wood stoves for a future homeless camp. A man has agreed to stash the larger appliances in a site in Monroe Township, Brigham said.

"I have no other place to go," said Brigham, who is still determining where he will live after Tent City. "I'll probably just stay in the bus for a while."

As many as six homeless people who were not counted in the census but who were at Tent City on the day it was closed last week are staying in motel rooms for up to a week, Akerman said.